Holding On
by Ancalime8301
Summary: **Follow-up to "Just Don't Have the Heart to End It" and "Always There Beyond the Touch of Darkness"** AU. Perhaps there is still hope for Frodo, despite his suffering...


A/N: This story is a continuation of Skye's "Just Don't Have the Heart to End It" and Aemilia Rose's "Always There Beyond the Touch of Darkness." If you haven't read those, this probably won't make much sense. ;)

__Holding On__

"Oh, Papa... *Look*," she breathed, speaking in no more than a whisper, afraid of breaking the spell. Her father had just come to a stop behind her, made slow by the heavy weight of years of grief.

"I see it..." he answered in a similar awestruck tone, his eyes fixed on the sight in the garden. Elanor could hear the chatter of her siblings and the clatter of dishes as supper was cleaned up; she also caught a brief bit of her husband's off-key singing as he put Elfstan to bed, having yet again taken responsibility for the babe as she assisted her father with Frodo. They had braved the hall of nightmares, not for the first time and certainly not the last, in hopes of persuading Frodo to take a morsel of food. It had been a week since that fateful night in the study when Frodo held Sting to his own throat.

Since then, Frodo had been unusually cooperative, actually eating a bit here and there, and seemed to return to sanity for slightly longer periods of time, though he still had his fits more often than his sane periods. Tonight he'd again eaten a few hesitant bites of bread and drunk a few sips of water without needing any persuasion, but the entire time his gaze was distant and his words guarded. After a little while, both Sam and Elanor had relaxed slightly, assuming his good behaviour would continue.

Thus they were caught off-guard when Frodo abruptly leapt out of bed and escaped out the door. He ran without a clear idea of where he was going, just as long as it was away. The cozy warmth and light of the front portion of the smial repelled him, the brightness and noise driving him away from the rest of the family. Which left him only one avenue of escape: the rarely used back door, its proximity to the room of horror causing the hole's residents to be wary of it.

Frodo threw open the round door with a bang, making it rattle and creak on its hinges as it hit the wall and bounced back, and dashed outside. But once there, he'd come to an abrupt halt, and remained in place as Elanor and then Sam arrived in the doorway to stare at the wasted figure before them.

A warm spring breeze gently caressed pallid, paper-thin cheeks, arousing there the barest hint of a healthy flush that had not been present for at least a decade. Frodo stood stock-still, three paces from the door, his colourless eyes wide in an expression of complete wonderment. His limp, shapeless nightgown, hanging off his skeletal frame, almost glowed in the dusky twilight, as if he were clothed in the radiant beams of the stars beginning to twinkle overhead.

The beauty of these long-forgotten things, the very nature around him, from the stars in the heavens to the tiniest bloom, smote his heart and broke through the darkness, however briefly, in a way nothing else could. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came forth; he could find no terms in his vocabulary of darkness and despair to suit what he was now experiencing. As Sam watched in wonder, Frodo's words in Mordor returned unbidden to his mind. "No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades." That wheel of fire and its surrounding darkness had again consumed his vision, seemingly, driving all else from his mind but nightmares and pain and suffering and despair. But now...

Now he was beginning to remember. Sam could see it in his face and eyes as he continued to stare in astonishment about him, as one blind whose sight had just been miraculously restored. Frodo fell to his knees in the grass; Elanor started forward, thinking he was about to collapse, but he remained upright, feeling and caressing the soft green grass with his hand. He saw her movement and took it upon himself to try to explain. "It's all so . . . so . . . " he trailed off, waving his arm vaguely, as if trying to catch the words he sought from the soothing blanket of fresh air wrapped around him.

He nearly caught a lightning bug in his grasp for words, and followed it with his eyes across the garden before gazing upward to the light of hundreds of fireflies affixed permanently to the deep velvet of the night sky. Frodo's eyes were drawn inexorably toward the brightest of the evening stars, and he gasped in recognition. "Earendil," he sighed, a slow tear trickling down his cheek. He knew that star, had looked upon it thousands of times before, and though he had changed immeasurably, it was still the same as it had been before, and as it will continue to be long after his soul departs Middle Earth. Perhaps there was indeed always a light and high beauty forever beyond the reach of even the darkest shadows.

Suddenly he remembered another light. *May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out.* He stirred slightly and asked, "Sam, whatever happened to the Lady's glass?"

"The-the star-glass?" Sam stuttered, at a momentary loss for words. That voice was the voice of Frodo, the old Frodo, the normal Frodo; Sam marveled that he was in his right mind for such a long stretch of time. "I don't recall exactly, but I'm sure it's in a safe place." This was a lie; Sam knew exactly where Galadriel's Phial lay: he'd locked it up for safekeeping after Frodo threatened to shatter it during one of his first major fits, even before he'd battered his door down with his body. The locked chest in the cellar now housed Sting as well, put away after last week's episode. "Did you want to see it?"

A pause, then the quiet response. "No... no, not quite yet." Frodo shivered a little, hugging his arms close to him and rubbing the left with the right, as if trying to put some warmth back into the icy, useless flesh.

Sam saw the shiver and slowly approached Frodo. "Why don't you come back inside? It's gettin' a mite chilly out here." Frodo made no answer, but also didn't resist as Sam carried him back to his study and laid him upon the bed.

Frodo bit back a moan, even Sam's gentlest touch causing the constant pain to flare up to new heights. He whispered, "When I get better...

"Will I ever get better, Sam?" Frodo asked beseechingly, his shadowed eyes filled with tears of longing and grief. Sam looked away from his gaze, his own eyes filling with tears. "I don't know, Frodo," he answered huskily. "I don't know."

Elanor helped her father spread several blankets over the afflicted hobbit, then turned to leave. Sam was about to shut the door when Frodo rolled to face him and whispered plaintively, "Please... don't go... don't leave me... it's so dark..."

Sam returned to the bedside, sitting on the edge of the bed as he ran a soothing hand through Frodo's hair while Frodo firmly gripped the other. "Hush now, me dear... I'm right here and I'm not going anywhere." Frodo's breath hitched a little and he sighed, his eyes slowly drooping shut as he allowed his weariness to engulf him.

Elanor was stunned by the change she had seen in Frodo that evening; for long moments he had returned to being the dear Uncle Frodo of her memory. The smial quieted down as the evening drew on, and still she sat in the hallway, thinking. As she held an internal debate, she grew more and more convinced that Frodo could be saved after all. The severity of his ailment may be the result of his being shut away in the dark for far too long. If only they could draw him out more, both literally and figuratively, perhaps they could help strengthen the part of him enslaved in his prison of darkness and madness. Then her brothers and sisters could see Uncle Frodo as she remembered him, kind and funny, always willing to tell a story or two, instead of as someone to be feared, out of his mind and violent. It was a gamble, yes, but it just might work . . . 

~~~~

Elanor had quite a time convincing her mother, her father, and her husband that her idea had merit. But Sam could tell she was truly sincere, and gave his blessing to her efforts. So they slowly introduced more light into Frodo's darkness, and for a time it was difficult to discern if it had any effect. Sam replaced the broken panes of Frodo's study window, and trimmed the grass around it to allow some of the sun's rays to filter in for a couple of hours around midday. Elanor would persuade Frodo to venture outdoors, only once or twice a week at first, but with the goal of getting him outside every day. He would emerge to enjoy the dusky twilight, watching as the night deepened and the stars bashfully appeared, but he still avoided the sun; his weak eyes unable to endure the bright onslaught. Rosie pressed him to eat as much as possible and his appetite seemed to increase at times, but he still looked just as thin. Frodo still had his fits as before, though he never injured anyone but himself in his violence.

At first, it even seemed that his bad moods worsened in intensity, with Frodo being even more self-destructive, tearing up his room and himself to such an extent that the others dared not enter the room until after he passed out from exhaustion. For several days afterward, Sam or Elanor would sedate him as soon as he showed signs of waking, and Frodo fought them at every turn.

One night, three days following the most recent bad turn, Frodo struggled out of the drug-induced stupor to see Sam sleeping in a chair next to the bed, the bottle of sedative on the nightstand. Frodo, for it was indeed Frodo, looked upon Sam with sorrow, noting with guilt how old and worn his dear friend looked. He knew Sam's premature aging was his doing, and he loathed himself for it. Seeing the bottle on the nightstand, he did not hesitate.

Frodo leaned off the bed, reaching for and grasping the bottle, nearly dropping it at first-it was heavier than he'd expected, and he was weaker than he cared to admit. The bottle was nearly full, he observed with satisfaction, there should be more than enough for his purposes. With both hands on the precious glass container, he shakily lifted it, then froze when Sam shifted in his sleep. But Sam remained blissfully unaware, and Frodo heaved a sigh of relief. His arms were beginning to tremble, the exertion of holding onto the heavy bottle sapping his meager strength, so he waited no longer.

He gulped the bitter liquid, trying to finish off the bottle to ensure he wouldn't wake up again to torment Sam and his family further. But his body was not as strong as his will, and his clasp on the bottle slipped as his strength gave out and he slumped down onto the bed. The glass hung in the air for a moment before shattering on the floor, dark medicine spreading in a sickly puddle around sharp fragments. The noise woke Sam, who opened his eyes to see Frodo lying on the edge of the bed, his eyes drifting shut, a widening pool of syrup spreading on the floor underneath his dangling arm.

"Mr. Frodo!" Sam cried in horror. It did not take long to realize what happened, and it seemed more than half the bottle had been drunk by the suffering hobbit on the bed. He knelt by the side of the bed, ignoring the shards, and held Frodo's dangling hand as he laid his other hand on Frodo's cheek. "Mr. Frodo... why?"

Frodo struggled to raise his eyelids as Sam's face swam in his vision. "I... know what you were trying to do..." he whispered, not answering the question. "It wasn't working . . ." he trailed off, his eyes closing fully. Sam choked on a sob and moved his unsteady hand to Frodo's neck, fearful of what he would find. But Frodo yet lived, cast into a deep sleep by the sedative, though failing to achieve that deeper sleep he so desperately sought.

Sam sent Frodo-lad for the doctor as soon as it was light, knowing the doctor would not want to be roused from his slumber for the care of a hobbit who, in his opinion, should have died a long time ago. Predictably, the doctor came only reluctantly, and stayed only as long as it took to briefly glance at the patient and say, "He may wake up, he may not. Who knows?" 'And who cares?' he sniffed to himself as he trod up the road back to Hobbiton.

Frodo did wake up, after three days of deathlike sleep. There were countless times that Sam thought Frodo would not take another breath, but invariably he did, prolonging his life. When Frodo awoke, he was weak and confused, with smudges under his eyes and his face lined with weariness. Sam was overjoyed when Frodo opened his eyes and asked tiredly, "Why do I feel so wretched?" He remained conscious for a very short time, still fighting off the effects of the sedative overdose.

It was a week after his attempted suicide before he could stay awake for any length of time. He was weary, weary of life, weary of fighting the pain, yet something in him refused to die even when faced with such a blatant opportunity to do so. It did not take Sam or Elanor long to realize that in that week, whenever Frodo was actually awake, it was really Frodo, the normal Frodo, who was aware and speaking with them. There was as of yet no sign of his madness. Could his misguided attempt to end his life have finally overcome his fits? It was too soon to tell.


End file.
